


A Fair Day in Spring

by Annwyd



Category: Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms, Fate/stay night (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-22
Updated: 2013-11-22
Packaged: 2018-01-02 07:38:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1054191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annwyd/pseuds/Annwyd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rin meets with a visitor in spring. Set after Heaven's Feel, Normal End.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fair Day in Spring

In time, Rin lets her hair down from its tails, and she begins to leave the door to her great old house open in the spring. It's not that she expects anyone to come in. Rin is not her sister; she knows that the boy with the stupid smile is gone forever, his body dissolved somewhere under the dark light of the Greater Grail. She is a realist, so she only leaves the door open because, after spending time here and there when her schedule permits in the Emiya household with Sakura, she has grown used to the airy feel of that house. Just leaving a door open won't emulate it in this cold and forbidding place, but it's a small and calculated gesture of defiance that pleases her.

In any case, it's all she has time to do in between continuing her studies from her years in the Clock Tower and taking care of business in Fuyuki City. She is a busy woman. She can't rearrange the furniture regularly and keep flowers on every tabletop, so instead she props open a few windows and keeps the door ajar.

In spring, a few flower petals sometimes blow in, and the wind ruffles her loosened hair. But she never expects anyone to walk through the door, though sometimes a stray cat does.

Spring comes and goes six times after the destruction of the Grail and the disappearance of Shirou Emiya, and then it comes once more. Rin has returned full time from her schooling in magecraft, and Sakura often smiles underneath her vague and distant eyes now. Rin wakes up late in the mornings now that she has no school to attend, and she intends to take full advantage of this for the rest of her life.

One morning as spring lengthens towards summer she wakes up a little earlier than usual, because something is a little strange. It feels like there's a presence in the mansion, an important presence, even though no one has trespassed across the boundary field over the door. Rin doesn't want to creep downstairs with a gandr shot at the ready, but nevertheless she does. She still follows some rules from her past, and one is that trespassers into her home or her heart must be greeted with the greatest of indignation. She makes her way to the hall, and the dining room, and finally the kitchen.

He is standing in front of the refrigerator, examining its contents. As she approaches, he turns just slightly and says, "Your technology phobia was sort of entertaining at first, but now you're just taking it too far. This thing barely works. Be reasonable, Rin, and get a new fridge."

She watches him with eyes she's suddenly not sure if she can trust. "I am reasonable. The last time I tried to use a newer refrigerator, the ice-maker exploded all over me. I had to punish it."

"What? That's nonsense." He pulls a carton of eggs out and closes the refrigerator door. "You can't punish an appliance."

"I reduced it to rubble, Archer."

He sets the eggs down on the counter. The tea kettle is already on the fire, and now he takes a moment to check it before speaking. "You are a wasteful girl."

"Woman," she says.

He glances up. "What?" he says again.

"I'm twenty-four years old now," Rin says, "and a proper magus."

Archer finally looks long and hard at her face. "Yeah. Your hair looks good like that, Rin."

"You're late as hell if you want to compliment me," she begins. "I have eleven suitors and--"

He gives her an even harder stare. "Excuse me, Rin, but what kind of language did you just use?"

It's her heart finally betraying her calm face. She hadn't meant to say anything like that, but faced with his presence here in her house, she let slip something inappropriate. "Stupid Archer, I learned some unladylike things too in London. I'm going to hold you responsible for making me use them like that."

He smiles a little. It's a nice thing to see. "I see. You call yourself a woman, but you're still enough of a child that you'll deny your own feelings and leave me with the bill for them."

"You really don't get it," she says. "It's my _fist_ I'll leave you with, Archer--"

He leans forward abruptly and takes hold of her rising hands. "I'll take that too. Rin." His eyes are bright and earnest.

"Archer--" Her heart jumps and freezes in her throat, cutting off her speech for a solid ten seconds. Rin has to breathe deeply to recover. "You're breaking a multitude of laws by being here, so quit it with the inane babble and tell me what's going on."

Behind him, the kettle begins to whistle before he can say a word. Archer lets go of her hands and turns to attend to the tea. "Go sit down at the table, Rin. I'll bring you your tea and explain."

When he arrives with the tea a few minutes later, Rin has composed herself again. She sniffs at her cup. "I can't believe you remembered how I like it. That's just sad. Don't you have anything better to do?"

"Nope," he says. "I've got nothing at all better to do than think about the times I made you tea, and how I'd enjoy doing it again if I got the opportunity."

He holds his chin out boldly, but something about the stiffness of his shoulders suggests to Rin that it takes effort for him to say something like that. She sighs and looks at him seriously. "Well, Archer? You said you'd explain, so don't disappoint me now."

"You sound so resigned." He leans on another chair but doesn't sit down. "When have I disappointed you in the past, Rin?"

"When you died and left me alone," she says.

His eyes grow serious. "I was only a Servant. I thought it was obvious, but that sort of arrangement isn't meant to last. Dying to save people was probably the best way it could have ended, so--" There's the slightest tremor in his voice for a second. "I don't regret it. Yeah, that's one thing I don't regret."

"I know it was a short time," Rin says quietly, "but I grew used to having a partner, Archer. That was a precious thing to me."

He can't answer that, so he glances away and lets moments pass by in silence. "Don't let the tea get cold, Rin."

"I'm already drinking it," she says, and she continues to watch him.

Finally, he says, "You're looking at me for an explanation of how I'm here, but I've got no such thing. Maybe you messed with the Second Magic too much. Maybe the world finally grew tired of me and dumped me here like a sack of unwanted kittens."

"Oh, meow to you too," Rin says. "If you're going to say a thing like that you should put on little cat ears, Archer. Come on, it'd be cute." She nods as she says inconsequential things to cover herself up at a time like this.

"I'm really fortunate that that command spell is gone," he says.

"And a tail," she says.

"Really, really fortunate."

Rin sits there for a while with Archer, and she drinks her tea. It's been a long time since someone made her tea, and she allows herself to enjoy it this once. When she's done, she even says, "Thank you for the tea, Archer."

He raises his brows. "Am I going insane, or did Rin Tohsaka just thank me for something?"

"I told you I'm a lady," she says. "Don't be so surprised when I act it."

He laughs. It's a nice sound to hear, because it's almost genuine. Almost: there's still a trace of bitterness and a hint of regret in it. His eyes are still clouded. He is not a man who's fully healed or ever will be. Rin knows a little, these days, about people who aren't fully healed, and never will be.

"I'm really mad at you," she eventually says. "If I have to be honest about my feelings, I'm angry at you."

"I'll accept it," he says in return. "It'll be a pain, but I'll accept your anger and your tears. That's what I've decided, now that I'm here."

"I didn't say that I'd give them to you," Rin says rather sharply. She means to be calm about it, but it's impossible. She really is angry, she realizes.

He blinks. "What?"

Rin doesn't answer at first. Mercifully, he lets her stare down at her empty tea cup in silence as she gathers her thoughts. After a time, she says, "Emiya never returned to my sister's side, you know."

"Is that so?"

"Mm-hmm." She looks hard into the cup as if more tea would appear in it, but it doesn't, so she has to keep talking. "He was a really fickle boy. He promised Sakura he would return to her, so she keeps expecting him. But in the end, he died saving her."

When Archer speaks again, his voice is calm, but faintly melancholy. "It can't be helped. After all is said and done...that kid was incapable of choosing a path without destroying himself upon it. That's just how he was. Sakura will get the message sooner or later."

"I'm her sister, and I'm telling you she won't." Rin straightens up a little in her seat. "Well, thank you for the tea, Archer."

"You already said that," he says patiently.

He doesn't get it. He really doesn't get it. Rin's heart sinks a little: she's going to have to be direct. "I'm telling you to leave, Archer. It was a nice visit, but it's time for you to go."

"Ah," he says, though it's more like a sigh. He frowns a little and finally asks, "Is there someone else?"

"Of course not," she says. "There will never be anyone like you for me." The honesty of it is bothersome, but she has to say it. "We only had each other for a little while, but we were the best partners in the world. I really appreciated that."

He leans forward abruptly, frustration suddenly ablaze in his eyes. "Then Rin, why--?!"

She gives him her most earnest smile in return, to hide anything else that might lurk behind her eyes. "Because it's only fair, Archer. I'm the elder sister, so I have to care for Sakura. She's been broken in ways that will never be fixed. But I won't make it worse. I won't take for myself what she can't have."

"Rin," he says, a little breathlessly.

"I'm really happy you came to see me," she says. "But let's not see each other again." She keeps smiling until she's sure he knows it's an act. No, he knew it was an act from the start. He's always been able to see that.

"You're a really good sister," he says in the end.

"Don't say stupid things, idiot," she says. "If I were a good sister, I'd bring Emiya back for her and then keep you for myself too. But like you said, it can't be helped. I'm going to move on, Archer. I'm going to pursue my studies of magecraft and keep the Tohsaka name alive. I'll find a man with good magic circuits and have his child, and I won't let it stop me from watching over Fuyuki City."

"But--" He leans across the table; he touches her hand.

She pulls it back. "But some things are impossible, Archer!"

Words like that should echo, but they don't. The house isn't that big, after all. Eventually, Archer says, "You made your decision, huh."

"That's right."

"And Rin Tohsaka doesn't take back a decision like that."

"Mmm. I don't."

"Well, there's more tea in the kitchen. Goodbye, Rin."

After a while, the house no longer feels like it has that added presence in it. Rin sits at the table, alone once more. Her stiff shoulders start to hurt a little. It's too much, so she gets up and goes to get the rest of the tea. A lesser woman would let her hands shake at a time like this, she's sure, but she keeps them steady.

A window nearby has been propped open. One of the last flower petals of spring flutters through it to land on the counter. Rin frowns a little at it, because she'll have to clean it up herself.

But spring will be over soon, and summer will come as warm as before.


End file.
